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Comlinks

This month’s Star Wars writing prompt from the site Anakin and His Angel is, “After you’ve seen The Last Jedi with your favorite people once, twice, maybe even five times and enjoyed celebrating the most wonderful time of the year, we all want to know what your one favorite scene from the film was. Was it a scene that shocked you? That you hoped for? How did it resonate with you? What made it different from the rest of the film?”

I was so incredibly anxious to have Luke and Leia reunite in The Last Jedi, knowing that with Carrie Fisher’s death, this would be the only movie for it to happen. While I had really adored The Force Awakens, only having a brief wordless sighting of Luke meant that this movie better deliver.

The Skywalker twins have been my favorites since I was a child. I viewed them as heroes, plus I loved the public personas of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Neither became a mega-star like Harrison Ford, but to me they were so much more than that, they were REAL.

*Spoiler Alert*

Luke’s reluctance to leave his self-imposed exile on Ahch-Toconcerned me, and I didn’t understand his reasoning to stay put. I felt he was letting his family and the Rebels down, betraying the Jedi’s and taking the coward’s way out (but my feelings on that will come soon on a future post). I needed him to reunite with his sister and bring some order into the chaos of the struggling rebellion.

So when he showed up in the cave on the planet Crait where the Rebels were making a last stand, I was heartened. While Luke and Leia’s conversation was much much too brief, the scene was the one that touched me the most, in a movie that overall angered me (again, a conversation for another post). Luke handed Han’s dice to Leia, which I thought was a sweet way to connect the original three heroes. Within minutes they parted and Luke went out to battle his nephew Kylo. When we find out that all of Luke’s interactions were just an astral projection, I felt cheated. I was beyond angry! It took me a second watching of the movie, and some time to cool off, to realize that Leia would have known that Luke was just a projection. So while even if their physical bodies didn’t meet, their minds and souls did. Perhaps the next movie would have given us a better and more complete resolution had Carrie Fisher not died, but we will have to live with this reunion.

As such, my favorite scene was quite bittersweet. The Skywalker twins did not get the ending I felt they deserved, but I will try to believe that their reunion was filled with enough love and acceptence for the two siblings to feel complete.

This month’s Star Wars writing prompt on Anakin and His Angel is “There are several amazing supporting characters throughout the Star Wars galaxy, from the noble and sweet handmaiden Dorme’ to the crazy and mischievous Salacious Crumb. Which character from the films or cartoons do you particularly love the most?”

Every month that I do the prompts, I struggle with narrowing down my choices, and this month was no different. Does supporting mean anyone besides Luke, Leia, Han, Rey or the like? Does Obi-Wan count? I was very close to picking him, as he truly was a supporting character in the original trilogy, but later became a main one in Episodes I-III. Indeed, I hope he gets a spin off movie about his years in exile, but I digress…

As Star Wars is often male-centric, with female representation grossly neglected, I want to spotlight a woman. Who better than Shmi Skywalker, the matriarch of the Skywalker clan?

But what do we even know about Shmi? Even before Disney took over the Star Wars franchise , Anakin’s mother fell to the trope of the saintly mother’s death as fuel for the main character’s development. From Bambi to movies of today (especially Disney films) the mother MUST be killed, or dead already, to build sympathy and push the plot forward. We barely got to know Shmi, for everything that made her who she was happened offscreen. How exactly did she become pregnant with Anakin? What was her background before his birth? We never witnessed her marriage to Cliegg Lars and her being a step mother to Owen. Had she been able to be a loving mother to Owen, which in turn made him willing to take responsibility for baby Luke?

There were so many missed opportunities with Shmi. She is an enigma, forced into a martyr role, so as to represent Anakin’s descent towards the Dark Side. She made sacrifice after sacrifice for Anakin, and willingly sends him off to the Jedi Order. Although I am complaining about her small role, that scene of their goodbye tore at me, for I imagined how I would cope sending my child away forever. Her only reunion with him comes at a heavy cost, and she would be devastated to know what he did afterwards.

Although I have picked her as my favorite supporting character and I feel the actress Pernilla August did as much as she could with what little was given her, her small role symbolizes to me missed opportunities. Star Wars stands out for varied and complex characters, so it truly is a shame that Shmi couldn’t be given a richer role in the Star Wars universe.

How can I pick just ONE emotional scene from the growing Star Wars universe, as the Star Wars themed blog Anakin and His Angel asks me to? That’s like asking which of my three children is my favorite! So…I had the brilliant idea of asking each of them which was their most emotional scene as I put together this Comlinks prompt.

First off, my darling daughter! She’s a beauty, loves cats and is good with kids. April’s choice:

April choose the scene between Padmé and Anakin in Attack of the Clones as they are talking and falling in love with one another. Before you say how romantic that she would pick a love scene, she actually choose it to mock the dialogue. She immediately quoted Anakin as saying, “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.” I find it amusing that pitiful banter that led to her laughing was her most emotional moment. Watch out boys- you have to step up your game when you woo my daughter.

Next, my giant 6’4 son who is great musician, and is going off to Augustana College next year. Nick’s choice:

Nick was amazed when it was revealed that Kylo Ren was Han Solo’s son. He and a date had gone to see The Force Awakens, and saw it before I did. I quizzed him about the movie and he let slip what happened between father and son. Even knowing this spoiler, I was shocked at how hard it hit me when Kylo betrayed his father. The feels! The tears!

Last but not least, my baby who is an awesome runner and has a sly sense of humor. Lucas’s choice:

Lucas feels that Anakin’s turning fully to the darkside was depressing and led to all the destruction and death in the next movies. Lucas waxed poetic for days about Darth Vader’s last scene in Rogue One, as he thought he was so bad ass. But seeing Anakin’s downfall in Revenge of the Sith on the lava fields, as his last glimmer of good is seemingly extinguished, was his most emotional moment.

I could add so many more emotional moments- I am your Father, Luke’s hand being chopped off, Han Solo being frozen, Ben Kenobi dying, seeing a mature Leia and Han together, and Luke’s appearance as Rey finds him were all very emotional for me. That these movies still shock me, make me laugh, make me cry, make me worry and make me sit at the edge of my seat are a credit to the storytelling and epic scope of this universe.

May The Force Be With You ♥

-Nancy

Monthly writing prompts await you on this incredible Star Wars site, led by the versatile Jenmarie!

An amazing Star Wars website, Anakin And His Angel, has a monthly writing prompt about the SW universe. Willing to try it for the first time, I discovered this month’s topic is to pick a favorite scene from Rogue One. But how can one pick just a single favorite scene of Rogue One?!

*Spoiler Alert* I decided to go with a surprisingly touching moment, not between the humans in the movie, but with the “death” of the droid K-2SO. Yes, a death scene of a robot was my favorite scene. Why? Well, first off, I loved K-2SO. The Star Wars droids have always been enduring, with R2-D2 and BB-8 being fan favs, but this Rogue One droid had something special. As such, his death was especially poignant.

K-2SO, voiced and acted by the epically awesome Alan Tudyk, was introduced as a former Imperial droid, who had been reprogrammed for the Rebels. He wasn’t cute like the previously mentioned chirping droids, and not an annoying know-it-all like C-3PO. Instead, this talking monolith had personality to spare. He cracked jokes, spoke bluntly, and gave his all to the cause.

The scene in question occurred in the Death Star control room, as K-2SO helps Jyn and Cassian find the database that will give them the plans for the weak spot that Jyn’s father built into the original Death Star. Jyn and Cassian have to leave the room to retrieve the data, and K-2SO stays behind to give his friends a fighting chance. Stormtroopers blast their way into the control room, as my beloved droid fights them off valiantly. He prevents the soldiers from getting to Jyn and Cassian, but dies in the effort of doing so. As his eyes blink out, you know he is no more.

As with many of the characters of Rogue One, you know his death makes sense, as it a prequel to A New Hope, but that doesn’t makes the deaths any easier. But to have a droid show such friendship, compassion and bravery for the Rebel cause is a credit to the movie as a whole. K-2SO made me care, and then cry for his humanity and the sacrifice he so willingly made.